Having spent the last 30 years or so devoting most of my time to the "music business" I decided enough was enough and it was about time I got back to the thing I really love

PAINTING.

A good grandfather saw early promise and gave me a set of oil paints when I was 10 years old and I began to do paintings just like his ,landscapes usually, but also dogs people , houses, castles, but mountains and lakes were my favourite.

I began to experiment with a kind of photo realism that journaled my life, and experimented with halucogens too , so that changed things to a more colourful and abstract style.

I became a degree student at The Hornsey School of Art in 1976 after a foundation course at Barking technical college of all places {incidentally, this is where I saw the Sex Pistols play at our christmas party in 1975 in a pub in East Ham,before anyone else saw them really , and it changed my life!]

At Hornsey school of art in 1976 the first thing they said was STOP PAINTING painting was dead and it was the time of "conceptual" art. So I went along with the whole thing and stopped painting, did some conceptual performance things and this led me to the experimental music studios in the college where I discovered Synthesisers and a four track studio and my interest in painting waned and took a back seat .

My new passion became sound , recording and performing and this led to a post punk band called The MONOS! Then a new romantic band called Victims Of Pleasure. I made records with both bands but had no commercial success. In the meantime I had learned about recording music and became a studio recording engineer in 1982.

Life followed on and I had children , got divorced ,became a teacher of music technology in 1990, a job I have done since,until in May 2006 I made the decision to paint again and give it all my energy and commitment.

The LOOPS and CYCLES series are the paintings that set me free, and although I will experiment with many different ideas over time ,I think I will always come back to this idea and explore it further. Except its not really an idea as such but a story that has an ending unknown to me.

I never make drawings or plans and just "soak" until the colour comes to me. I dont know what makes them complete , but when they are, they achieve a "dimensionality, or plasticity", and then I stop.

I have enjoyed these paintings immensely, its like the gushing of a tap that has finally been unplugged. The insecurity of my youth has dissapeared and I know now that I will never stop painting again .I will persue it as a career from now on,Iam convinced I need to paint these things and YOU need to SEE THEM.Feel them. Let them feel you.